So our journey started in April of 2010 when, after seeing my gyno, I was referred to a fertility specialist, Dr. H. My gyno suspected a luteal phase defect (LPD) in my short cycles (average 24-26 days). The luteal phase is the time between ovulation and getting your period. The average woman would have a luteal phase of 12 to 14 days. Mine was 9-10 days which meant my lining was shedding preparing for my period before I could even give the embryo a chance to implant. So off to the RE, Dr. H, I went.
Standard procedure was for my RE to send me for the standard tests, and after all my tests came back negative, showing nothing wrong with me, my husband (DH) was up to bat hoping and praying he wouldn't be the one to strike out. I have to admit, I was playing for the other team because boy did I think it would be him (well since it wasn't me and it had to be ONE of us). Afterall, he was the one to experiment (I use that term litely) with the occassional recreational drug back in his day (which was not that long ago). Well I was quickly proved wrong. Turns out it didn't have to be one of us, and it was actually none of us. His little swimmers were plentiful and perfect. How could it be...if not me, if not him...unexplained? What did that mean? Oh so many things as we were soon about to find out.
Soon after our test results the RE (best in town btw) said to take clomid, and that should solve the problem seeing there's no reason why we wouldn't conceive. So 3 months after taking this, I googled (which became my best friend during this time, the only one I can ask questions to and would always have an/several answer(s), the only one that would never be fed up of talking about this particular topic, the only one 24-hours a day, when I couldn't sleep, could put my mind at ease, and the only one who was there to help me explain to DH what I was going thru) and found out that clomid could make your lining thinner and actually work against me in implantation. We found this after an ultrasound for our first IUI. The techinician said my lining was at 4.4 and that my chances were very low. So for the next 3 IUIs our RE switched us to gonal-F which worked miracles with my follicles and brought my lining to an 8 which was perfect. At times, we would have to sign consent forms that stated we agreed to the treatment fulling knowing we could have twins and the complications that went along with that. My DH and I just looked at each other and rolled our eyes as if to say, yeah ok, we'll take what we can get at this point. As you can see, no twins, no singletons, nada.
So after 4 failed IUIs, the nurse suggested it would just be wasting our time and energy on doing another one. Back to the RE we went. Finally we got our approval to move on to IVF. Couldn't have been better timing because while all this was going on, our province changed the laws and started to pay for IUIs & IVFs (up to a maximum of 3). One less stress to have on our mind, financially.
When I first called to get our calendar apt, the apt. where they explain the procedure and all the medications for the upcoming IVF cycle, they told me SEPTEMBER 2011! What? 9 months waiting time? I could have a baby in that time frame. I felt like the last year and 4 months were already the longest wait time! So I took the apt. and then called every week to see if there was a cancellation sooner. Just my luck, one of the woman got pregnant naturally and had called just minutes before me to cancel her apt. in March! So I jumped on that one, took the apt. and have been in the in-between ever since.
Step 1 - Getting an IVF apt - Mission Accomplished.
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